If I were to install an image hosting site like imgeshack or one of the other and then permit people to upload photos and have them be able to post them on forums with the links pointing back to my site using either the <a or [url link structure, would this generate more traffic to the site and get a better PR?
Since most forums use different coding then simple html, that's not going to work directly. On the other hand, this is how imageshack etc. work. They give out free hosting space in return for links, basicly. I don't see why you would get those visitors though. There is too much competition already.
Imageshack and the others are very diverse in the type of images they permit to be hosted, I am aiming at a more pinpoint audience for a specific kind of site. I was going to install one of these as a subdomain for my main site and let people from my forums upload their images with the links pointing back to my forums instead of the imagehosting subdomain. Most users use imageshack or one of the others, but as this is a tight nit group, I pretty sure I am get them to start using mine and then hopefully move more traffic thru my forums
In that case you should probably help the people by automatically creating forum-code. Most forums use the same type of code anyhow.